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From: glenn@network.ucsd.edu (Glenn Sueyoshi)
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
Subject: Re: Help on tabular environment
Message-ID: <5434@network.ucsd.edu>
Date: 5 Jun 91 23:04:46 GMT
References: <009499D5.177367A0.6104@Niord.SHSU.edu>
Organization: University of California, San Diego
Lines: 44

In article <009499D5.177367A0.6104@Niord.SHSU.edu> bed_gdg@NIORD.SHSU.EDU 
("George D. Greenwade") writes:

>There is a style file available from FILESERV@SHSU.BITNET named LONGTABLE
>which (sort of) handles p-width columns in a {longtable} environment
>written by David Carlisle <carlisle@uk.ac.man.cs> dated 20/12/90.  It is
>similar to {supertabular}, but does a few other things as well (such as
>stepping and using the table counter, providing a caption, etc.).  

I'd like to put in a qualified plug for this .sty.  The main problem 
with the supertabular.sty and friends is that there does not appear
to be support for all of the numbering and cross-referencing provided
under table.

I say qualified because while I've grabbed the files and run the test
program and see how it should work in principal, I can't seem to get
it to line up the column widths properly.  The documentation says
that one should enable (uncomment out) out the \setlongtables
command and re-run, which I have (twice), but I still get columns 
which don't align.

I'm running LaTeX 2.09 <7 December 1989> under TeX 3.0 and have the
Mittelbach et al. font selection scheme installed.  I can send the
.log and .aux files to any who care, but let me note that when I
run the file, TeX DOES NOT complain about redefined column widths.

Let me say that if I can get this to work, it should solve the main
problems with table/page breaking and I would recommend the style
with few reservations.

>The main
>limitation on p-width columns is that they are not split across pages
>(properly counted w.r.t. lines used, but splits only occur on \hlines and
>line breaks).  

Can't see how TeX could do any better.  My feeling is that so long as
the lines are properly counted, that's the best that you're going to
get using a box oriented system like TeX.

If only I could get the boxes to line up.  Any thoughts George?  
If not, I'll try to get a hold of David Carlisle directly.
Thanks.

Glenn